The Police Stress Hypothesis

Abstract

Much attention has been given to the topic of occupational stress among law enforcement professionals during the last decade. Yet, while the number of papers addressing this topic appear with increasing regularity in the law enforcement literature, the basic assumptions underlying the concept of police stress appear to have been ignored or accepted as fact in the absence of sound empirical support. This article represents an attempt to (1) identify the assumptions that underly the concept of police stress, (2) review the empirical evidence related to these assumptions, and (3) offer an alternative paradigm designed to guide future research on police stress.